Advancements in communication technologies have permitted the construction of radio communication systems that provide for data communication services that require for their performance the ability to communicate large amounts of data in short periods of time. The throughput capacity of a communication system quantifies the rate at which data can be communicated between a set of communication stations. Generally, at higher data throughput rates, a communication service that requires communication of data of a given data size can be completed more quickly than when the data is communicated at a lower throughput rate.
A cellular communication system is exemplary of a radio communication system that increasingly is used by which to perform data communication services. While early-generation cellular communication systems were primarily used for voice communication services, successor-generation, cellular communication systems have provided for successively greater data services. A GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) cellular communication system, operable in conformity with the protocols and specifications of a series of operating standards promulgated by the EIA/TIA, is exemplary of a cellular communication system that provides for data communication services. Network infrastructures of GSM cellular communication systems have been widely deployed, permitting large numbers of users to communicate by way of a GSM network. Some GSM systems provide for GPRS (General Packet Radio Service), a high-speed data communication service. A super set of GPRS, referred to as EDGE (Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution), also defines a high-speed data communication service. EDGE communications, in general, add eight-PSK modulation, incremental redundancy, and adaptive modulation and coding to GPRS communications. An EDGE-capable communication system, as a result, provides for achievable data throughput rates that are significantly higher than those achievable in a GPRS-only system. GPRS and EDGE data communications provide efficient usage of radio and network resources to effectuate data communication services that are packet based, intermittent and non-periodic, and either frequent, with small transfers of data, or infrequent, with large transfers of data. Internet browsing and electronic mail messaging are two exemplary communication services carried out by way of a GSM/GPRS/EDGE network. Other digital cellular communication systems analogously also provide for data communication services.
The operating protocols set forth in the standard promulgations relating to GSM/GPRS/EDGE communications define various requirements with respect to the communication stations between which the data is communicated. For instance, specification number TS 45.008[5] sets forth adjacent-cell measurement requirements. And, document TS 45.0002[2], Annex B, sets forth required communication-station reaction times. Multi-slot classes are also defined in the standard promulgation.
A possible multi-slot communication allocation provides for the possibility of communication allocations. That is to say, allocations can be made over a plurality of time slots, even the entirety of the time slots of one or more frames. While permitted, this multi-slot communication possibility is precluded in actual practice. Reporting and acknowledgment requirements, set forth in the aforementioned operating protocols, necessitate that a receiving communication station be able to generate and send acknowledgments or reports during one or more time slots of a frame or group of frames. The need to provide for a time slot for reporting or acknowledgment messages, if only during a single time slot of a group of frames, prevents an allocation of all of the time slots for the data communications.
If a manner could be provided by which to permit the multi-slot communication allocations while still providing a mechanism for a communication station to return communication acknowledgments or reports, improved communication performance in a time-slotted communication system would be provided.
It is in light of this background information related to communications in a slotted radio data communication system that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.